legends [Finished] [K1] Selven "Legends"

[ebmar 893]

9 hours ago, DarthParametric said:

...If you wanted to adjust it, decompile the model and open the ASCII in a text editor. Look for the bullethook. It should be something like this:

node dummy bullethook
  parent w_hvyblstr_003
  position 0.0001741 0.354063 0.108606
  orientation 1.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
endnode

Change it to:

node dummy bullethook
  parent w_hvyblstr_003
  position 0.0 0.375 0.108606
  orientation 1.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
endnode

And recompile. See if that makes a difference. If it still looks off, you could bump the Y position to 0.395 and see how that looks.

N.B. if you have made your own custom model then your parent name will be different. You don't need to touch that, just the position values.

No, I do no significant change to the models; only to enablebumpmapping, as it utilise normal map for its new version, and change its header name.

Later, I do adjust the value as being suggested, and yes, it does makes a difference. It looks like the muzzle is in much proper position right now. I'm personally pleased with the result 😁

But I do notice a significant change to the mesh too, noticeably in-game. The mesh looks like it is "flaky", to tell the truth I kinda dig the looks, as it seems it was like a used out-weary-been-through-a-lot  blaster though 😂

[DarthParametric 3,784]

I'm guessing that's a bad normal map, or bad UVs on the model. The "weathering" you are seeing is presumably compression artefacts.

Edit: Ah, I see what it is. You used the w_hvyblstr_003 texture to generate the normal map. It has those details on the "magazine" (or whatever that bit is). I think you'd be better off just not using the normal map. SS went to the trouble of faking height detail in the texture. A half-assed normal map is going to make it look worse, not better.

[ebmar 893]

4 hours ago, DarthParametric said:

I'm guessing that's a bad normal map, or bad UVs on the model. The "weathering" you are seeing is presumably compression artefacts.

Yes, this was a similar result as that attempt on converting .tga to .tpc while ago.

Quote

Edit: Ah, I see what it is. You used the w_hvyblstr_003 texture to generate the normal map. It has those details on the "magazine" (or whatever that bit is). I think you'd be better off just not using the normal map. SS went to the trouble of faking height detail in the texture. A half-assed normal map is going to make it look worse, not better.

Spot on! Yes, you were right; I used the "w_hvyblstr_003" texture to generate the normal map. I am using the Photoshop on doing that. Guess that make lot of sense then, could say the normal map is not necessary in this case. Thank you for the insight DP, appreciate it!

[DarthParametric 3,784]

The other thing is that SS's textures - presumably on purpose - have a lot of grain. Trying to generate normal maps from colour images usually ends poorly at the best of times, but the grain in this case would make for a very noisy normal map. A noisy normal map is a bad normal map. Additionally, the source texture is pretty low res. It works fine in the game given the size of the blasters, but again this makes for a poor normal map when taking into account the effect of compression artefacts.

The thing to keep in mind is that normal maps are not magic. Adding one doesn't inherently make a model look better. On the contrary, a poor normal map will make it look worse.

[Sithspecter 909]

Seeing as how my blasters have come up in several posts, I will try to clarify a few things.

The muzzles I kept in a very similar location to the originals. I think the power blast muzzle looks the strangest, as its model does have the most volume and extends back behind the muzzle hook. The regular muzzle flash is right at the tip of the barrel. In addition, many firearms have ported muzzle brakes so that the flash actually does come from porting around the barrel tip.

The textures were made grainy and a lower resolution as to blend in with the overall game as best as possible. Higher resolution source files should be in the modder's resource should you need them, with or without the grain as well.

[DarthParametric 3,784]

Ah, I had forgotten that the source textures were available. I'd never downloaded them, so was only going from what I had on my HDD. Looking at the heavy blaster source, it looks like it would be easy enough to get a psuedo-height map out of that just by turning off the colour layers, although it might need some manual adjustment/cleanup in a few spots. Here's a quick and dirty example:

Although if you were going to go that route you'd want to turn off all the highlights on the diffuse and rely on the normal map for that detail. But to be honest I'd just stick with SS's vanilla textures. They are more than good enough on their own.

[Sithspecter 909]

16 minutes ago, DarthParametric said:

But to be honest I'd just stick with SS's vanilla textures. They are more than good enough on their own.

That's high praise coming from you! 😀 Thanks for the kind words.

[DarthParametric 3,784]

Perhaps I should start a rating system.

[ebmar 893]

On 7/3/2018 at 10:03 AM, DarthParametric said:

The other thing is that SS's textures - presumably on purpose - have a lot of grain. Trying to generate normal maps from colour images usually ends poorly at the best of times, but the grain in this case would make for a very noisy normal map. A noisy normal map is a bad normal map. Additionally, the source texture is pretty low res. It works fine in the game given the size of the blasters, but again this makes for a poor normal map when taking into account the effect of compression artefacts.

The thing to keep in mind is that normal maps are not magic. Adding one doesn't inherently make a model look better. On the contrary, a poor normal map will make it look worse.

Thank you DP! This understanding is what is needed- appreciate it a lot!

On 7/3/2018 at 11:34 AM, Sithspecter said:

Seeing as how my blasters have come up in several posts, I will try to clarify a few things.

The muzzles I kept in a very similar location to the originals. I think the power blast muzzle looks the strangest, as its model does have the most volume and extends back behind the muzzle hook. The regular muzzle flash is right at the tip of the barrel. In addition, many firearms have ported muzzle brakes so that the flash actually does come from porting around the barrel tip.

The textures were made grainy and a lower resolution as to blend in with the overall game as best as possible. Higher resolution source files should be in the modder's resource should you need them, with or without the grain as well.

Yes SS! I do must confess I've been causing this trouble for being lazy here. My bad! The fact is, I already downloaded the modder's resource you suggested, but at that time I already do the work with the low-res texture coming from the "High Quality Blasters", so I keep going with that. It seems there cannot be compromise on quality; if you were really looking for that quality. Lesson learned. And I do appreciate your effort which made the textures grainy and low-res as to blend in with the overall game as best as possible. I do believe that is an important thing which often being left out.

On 7/3/2018 at 12:11 PM, DarthParametric said:

Ah, I had forgotten that the source textures were available. I'd never downloaded them, so was only going from what I had on my HDD. Looking at the heavy blaster source, it looks like it would be easy enough to get a psuedo-height map out of that just by turning off the colour layers, although it might need some manual adjustment/cleanup in a few spots. Here's a quick and dirty example:

Although if you were going to go that route you'd want to turn off all the highlights on the diffuse and rely on the normal map for that detail. But to be honest I'd just stick with SS's vanilla textures. They are more than good enough on their own.

Appreciate the details! I'm going to start to work with what's inside the modder's resource then; as I am still, looking to get the most of the normal map from utilizing it with the blaster. 🤞

[Sithspecter 909]

13 hours ago, DarthParametric said:

Perhaps I should start a rating system.

I'm totally including this for when I repackage High Quality Blasters.

[ebmar 893]

31 minutes ago, Sithspecter said:

I'm totally including this for when I repackage High Quality Blasters.

Haha! Think you should get DP's approval before then SS 😁

[DarthParametric 3,784]

I need to provide some back-of-the-box quotes as well.

"Yeah, it was OK I guess"

"I haven't uninstalled it yet, so there's that"

"If you are a fan of mods, this is a mod"

"The most fun I've ever had extracting a ZIP archive"

[ebmar 893]

5 hours ago, DarthParametric said:

I need to provide some back-of-the-box quotes as well.

"Yeah, it was OK I guess"

"I haven't uninstalled it yet, so there's that"

"If you are a fan of mods, this is a mod"

"The most fun I've ever had extracting a ZIP archive"

These would get along nicely with the new icons hahah. And more quote's suggestion: "I had fun with the patcher though" 😂

[djh269 264]

"I dragged all the contents along with something called a TSLpatcher into my KoTOR folder and it doesn't work, I'm quitting modding"

[ebmar 893]

1 hour ago, djh269 said:

"I dragged all the contents along with something called a TSLpatcher into my KoTOR folder and it doesn't work, I'm quitting modding"

You deserved an infinite dark side points for suggesting that lols.

Anyways,

[Updated: July 05, 2018]

I believe the look of the blaster have been finalised now; as the achieved result was pleasing as-is, and the shade and tone of the blaster is fitting with Selven itself.

Along with the updated look, the problem with the "flaky" normal map on the texture and the muzzle glitch on the tip of the bullethook has been resolved.

Any updates of current development will also be posted in thread's introduction post.

[ebmar 893]

[Updated: July 07, 2018]

Well, life does strange.

Spends most of my time fiddling around with normal map but in the end- with this update; I decided to not uses normal map either on the head, body, blaster and the sword's texture. 🤪

The reasons are:

• The normal map is not effective on my case, as it's obvious that I'm not advanced at optimizing this feature- I can't get the most from it.
• I'm having new ideas with the looks especially with the armor, and I can't get them out with the normal map being utilized.
• Obvious, with the normal map being taken out the size of the mod could be reduced about 2.5 MB so, efficiency counts.
• Well, the new appearance somewhat pleasing for me so-

What's happening on the new looks?

They are:

• Selven get new pair of eyes.
• Her armor got some metals injected.
• The blaster and the sword had their looks slightly altered; noticeably with the reflection, and I am certain- they all blend more with the game now.

So, with the closing of this update is presented to you; yes- this is the final form of Selven "Legends" version 1.0:

Any updates of current development will also be posted in thread's introduction post.

[DarthParametric 3,784]

Haha, see? I told you to ditch the normal map. It's not really needed for what you are doing. Well, not this version anyway.

By the way, looks like you need to connect the bits of your font together there. You might want to try switching between upper case and lower case, as usually those Star Wars fonts have provision for extension pieces to link letters. It should look something like this:

[ebmar 893]

1 minute ago, DarthParametric said:

Haha, see? I told you to ditch the normal map. It's not really needed for what you are doing. Well, not this version anyway.

Haha- yes! These two lines from you are the main influence on the decision. Thanks!

Quote

Adding one doesn't inherently make a model look better. On the contrary, a poor normal map will make it look worse.

But to be honest I'd just stick with SS's vanilla textures. They are more than good enough on their own.

and for the font,

Quote

By the way, looks like you need to connect the bits of your font together there. You might want to try switching between upper case and lower case, as usually those Star Wars fonts have provision for extension pieces to link letters. It should look something like this:

Thanks for pointing that out!

Nice one DP! It seems you manually connected them, hahah! Actually, I have some ready to use Star Wars' fonts but I'm not sure I have one that resulting as what you did there. 🤔

As for that font; too late to notice- I go with the "hollow" version instead of others 🤣

[DarthParametric 3,784]

Yeah I don't have the font, so I just manually connected them. But I remember using them in the past. Is it called something like Star Vader? Although I guess there are probably a bunch. Anyway there should be a SW title font that will properly connect letters by switching between uppercase and lowercase, and they should also have joiner pieces as extra characters. Read the readme that came with it I guess.

[Kexikus 995]

1 hour ago, DarthParametric said:

Yeah I don't have the font, so I just manually connected them. But I remember using them in the past. Is it called something like Star Vader? Although I guess there are probably a bunch. Anyway there should be a SW title font that will properly connect letters by switching between uppercase and lowercase, and they should also have joiner pieces as extra characters. Read the readme that came with it I guess.

It's called Star Jedi.

[DarthParametric 3,784]

Ah, I knew it was something like that.

[JCarter426 1,215]

You weren't wrong - there's one called Star Vader too. I remember that was the first one I used long ago. Star Jedi is an update with a larger character set, although I've found it still isn't really that good at the connecting and some of the letter shapes are a little wonky. I type stuff in it as a template and then manually adjust the letters as needed. That's for fancy stuff, though. If I were being lazy like for screenshots I would just use the font as is.

[DarthParametric 3,784]

Probably best to do it in Illustrator/Inkscape, convert it to outlines, then just drag the points around as needed.

[ebmar 893]

[Completed: July 09, 2018]

Been thankful that the plan's running as intended. The mod was submitted today, and its been released now- thanks moderators! And with this update, it is being confirmed that; the 1.0 version of Selven "Legends", is finished. 🎇

So, do really hope you enjoy the mod as much as I do!

I'm leaving an extras here for that bit of entertainment. See you on the next update!

Any updates of current development will also be posted in thread's introduction post.

Edited July 13, 2018 by ebmar
[Completed: July 09, 2018] The 1.0 version of the mod is has been released.

[DarthParametric 3,784]

Congrats on the release. Now go actually play - and finish - the game.